I think they did a marvelous job covering most of the material. At one point I went 17 questions without an uncertain answer (or I just wasnt awared of the traps). FRA and Equity were easier than expected and some of the more difficult readings were not tested. CFAI threw a curveball on AI and PM, but I was able to get all the answers on PM and only had to quess 2 questions on AI.
What do you guys think about Elan’s?
much better than schweser. agree.
but fcking annoying that they were late on every single delivery. formula sheet is not anywhere close to being complete. and the 11hr guide was a disappointment, like for some topics like quant, pm, econ, cf…
I think Schweser did a pretty good job in their study guide for this year and their new Qbank. However, I did buy Elan’s 11th hour guide and it was worth the $50 to do quick memorization and retention in between study sessions
Either provider however imo failed to include every topic from the CFAI curriculum based on my experience with this year’s test. Goes to show that CFAI curriculum, although cumbersome is really the definitive answer on what to use as study material if you want the best chance of passing.
Do you remember the timeframe of when they delievered your materials?
Really? I studied exclusively with Elan’s and I feel like it covered 95%+ of the material and for last 2 months I read nothing but the 11th hour guide (CFAI EOC questions and mocks of course).
I didnt get the 11hr guide until early may. and they didnt make any of the deadlines which they had outlined on their website. and I felt like if I hadnt complained, they wouldnt have sent me sh.t. ask providence - the guy was about to ask for his money back.
now i felt like it was much better written as compared to schweser. much better. but thats just preference.
I knew they were late on delivering everything. I was just curious as to when you got your Elan books. If i remember right from people complaining on here, you got half your books in the fall, and the other half sometime in the spring, or something like that.
First 2 books arrived in March, and the rest came in around Apr/May.
Elan’s made everything available online so I took matters into my own hands and printed my own copy in Dec’13 at staple and managed to get a refund on the hardcopy while still receiving the hardcopy in the mail lol.
I used Schweser for level I and I got quite a few “WTF” moments on the exam when I didnt even know what the questions were asking; however, level II was a very different experience and I credited Elan’s for their work (and my 400 hours of study of course).
Retaker here, I used Elan this time around, and I couldn’t have been happier with it. Their videos are incredibly easy to follow, I actually didn’t even read material that much, all I did was watch their videos and take notes. The 11th hour guide was extremely helpful down the stretch, and their mocks were on point. I would be very surprised if I didn’t pass.
Also everyone complaining about late delivery are being a little picky IMO, considering most of the material was available online very early.
I bought various videos individually from Elan (primarily FRA, Derivatives and Fixed Income), I bought their practice questions, mock exams and 11th Hour Guide.
I think they did an excellent job teaching FRA in their videos. I feel like I knew pensions, intercorporate investments, multinational operations, inventory, long-lived assets very well for the exam and I don’t remember a single question on the exam in FRA that I wasn’t comfortable with. I think their Derivatives videos were great and I felt very comfortable with that topic, too.
I think their practice questions were good and challenging. I didn’t particularly like their mock exams, however, because I feel they were very challenging and not representative of what the true exam would be (it turns out they weren’t b/c the real thing was far less difficult), but I don’t regret spending the money to buy the mocks.
I used the 11th hour guide on Wednesday and Thursday before the exam and I felt it was a great refresher.
Their customer service sucks, however. I believe I bought the hard copy of the 11th Hour guide, but they never sent it to me. I had access to it online and it ended up being fine (I printed it off at work), but I would have preferred getting the book considering I paid for it.
So, regardless of some challenges with customer service, it’s a great teaching service. Olinto gets all of the love, but I think Basit does a good job too, although is less efficient with time.
On a side note, I think I swung and missed on the curveballs CGY is referring to. I was very comfortable with the exam except them. Elan did cover them in their material but I prioritized other topics (some of which may or may not have shown up on the exam !)
Kinda glad I paid for the “with you until you pass” guarantee because I’m pretty sure I failed. Hopefully Wiley will still honor it…
For me,schweser was my bible.
I only used Elan guides’s mock exams.
I think this impression is biased … It’s not about ELan or schweser … The exam was not as tough as expected… If CFAI wanted to make it hell, you’d be cursing Elan’s instead of praising them
I study with schweser and at many places it really needs some improvements. At some points, it explains you a topic like if you were a baby, and at others, it makes shortcuts considering if you were a phd … for example, pension accounting is very poorly written in the material …
I have plans to study from CFAI from now on and would just review schweser along with it…
i studied exclusively from Schweser for level I. Studied exclusively from Elan and the EOCs and BBs for level II. My plan is to **hopefully** study exclusively from the CFAI curriculum in level III.
Elan failed to cover the Bullshi* alternative seciton on the real exam…
I was able to get 4/6 on the AI set from what I have read in Elan’s…and the other 2 were 50/50 guesses. I seriously doubt the curriculum or Schweser would have fully prepared you for that item set anyways. Other than that item set, there were possible 3~4 more questions that I wasnt prepared for. Overall, I think Elan’s has 115/120 ratio on their guide, which is pretty decent. What do ppl using Schweser think about the material?
I was able to get 2 on that Alt section with 4 blind guesses. Also Elan didnt prepare me well for the 3 questions in PM… and 1 on Deriv.
In my opinion, Schweser covered all the sections well enough to be able to answer the questions on saturday’s test except in the areas of derivatives and 1 question I had with PM. Other than that, everything else that popped up on the exam I remember thinking oh yeah I read this but probably missed the answer on those I was unsure of since I didn’t read it closely enough.
Really my biggest gripe with CFA exams so far is purely the way they word the question. On ethics I understand because they want to give you a murky situation which happens in real life more often than simples yes this is ethical vs no this is unethical but other areas obfuscate for no good reason. Alas, that’s the game of CFA and life in general.
yeah and the cfa curriculum didnt prepare us well for the PM section either